Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Irishman writes "A leading climate change skeptic, Richard Muller, will release results today showing that global warming is indeed happening. He has shown that two items skeptics look to, urban heat islands and unreliable weather stations, do not skew the data. The amazing part is that this research is funded by the Koch brothers, two investors who fund climate change skeptics whenever possible."

The previous news was that the research didn't find flaws in "mainstream" view of climate change being happening. The new news is that one of the most outspoken skeptics decided to change his views based on that... which doesn't always happen. Thus, these news are about a less important event but still an interesting and different event.

Now... the denialists on SlashDot are saying "Fine, CC is happening but we don't agree that humans cause it" which just boggles the mind. We have scientific proof that CC is happening and we know of the mechanics through which greenhouse gasses (to which human activity significantly contributes) increase heat in atmosphere. So, we *do* know that human contribute to the CC that we know to be happening.

The only thing left to argue about is how much do we contribute... 80%? 50%? However, I've not once seen a denialist argue "The mainstream claims that we contribute 80% but I think it's only 50% because of this evidence..." but instead it always seems to be "Ok, CC is happening but it's all because of sun spots!" or whatever... which is the reason why I call them "denialists".

The prominent skeptic in question was the author of the research that was revealed last week.

Title of the TFA: Richard Muller, Global Warming Skeptic, Now Agrees Climate Change Is Real

The problem is that the supposed skeptic is not a skeptic at all. Here [grist.org] is what he said in 2008:

The bottom line is that there is a consensus -- the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] -- and the president needs to know what the IPCC says. Second, they say that most of the warming of the last 50 years is probably due to humans. You need to know that this is from carbon dioxide, and you need to understand which technologies can reduce this and which can't. Roughly 1 degree Fahrenheit of global warming has taken place; we're responsible for one quarter of it. If we cut back so we don't cause any more, global warming will be delayed by three years and keep on going up. And now the developing world is producing most of the carbon dioxide.

I'm not a climatologist. All I can base my opinion on is what I read and what I make of what I read. On one side, I see global warmongers saying that those that don't believe in Global Warming are flat-earthers and science obviously proves that GW is happening and it's all man's fault. On the other side, I see "skeptics" claiming that Global Warmongers are government supported scientists looking for grants and anti-capitalists looking to gain power. Who is telling the truth?

I find it really difficult to believe that Global Warming believers are telling me the truth when they trot out guys like this claiming that a skeptic has seen the light and all who are non-believers should follow his lead. After all, who can give a more non-biased story than a climate skeptic to begin with, right. The problem is, as I've stated, is that this guy was NEVER a climate skeptic and those that say he was are lying to my face. Why should I believe anything else the warmongers tell me?

More:

Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?

Oh yes. [Laughs.] In fact, back in the early '80s, I resigned from the Sierra Club over the issue of global warming. At that time, they were opposing nuclear power. What I wrote them in my letter of resignation was that, if you oppose nuclear power, the U.S. will become much more heavily dependent on fossil fuels, and that this is a pollutant to the atmosphere that is very likely to lead to global warming.

Yeah... This guy is no "skeptic". Why do the Global Warming believers need to lie to me if the science is as solid as they say it is?

God damn. I was inclined to believe that guy, as he was going against his bias, but now it seems that he WAS biased for AGW.

I don't think there is anything anyone can say to convince me of this theory any more. There have simply been too many lies, and the liars have been placed into positions of authority. Even reading TFA, the language is disturbing, saying that people should no longer be skeptical. Lack of skepticism is the single most deadly sin in science and in any economic system. Anyone calling for less of it is much more likely to have an agenda that he doesn't want people examining.

Just note that I didn't label my opponent, whereas that was exactly the crux of your argument: "oh no he wasn't a real sceptic, I have been lied to!" Wherein you demand that others adhere to your layman definition of scepticism, and you consider the lack of bias equal to your own to be bias. You make up half-truths in order to label others as liars. Well done for someone who dares calling himself my intellectual opponent.

Make two boxes sealed in plastic. Put some dry ice in one, nothing in the other. Put a thermometer in each one and place them under a heat lamp. The one with dry ice will definitely be warmer than the other box.

You could easily saturate one box with water vapor and leave the other one dry if you want to do another experiment.

Heat capacity? As in thermodynamic heat capacity? Either you are incorrectly using that term, or you don't understand what a greenhouse gas is.

Separately, the problem with water is that it cannot easily be removed from the atmosphere, as it's in a dynamic equilibrium with non-atmospheric water. On the other hand, the nice thing about water is that it cannot be easily added to the atmosphere, for the same reason.

Huh? Greenhouse gas has something to do with heat capacity? That's a new one. My understanding is that the important thing is the absorption spectrum of the gas.

Most solar radiation is re-emitted from the earth as IR light. The thing to figure out is which gasses contribute to the re-absorption of this form of energy in our atmosphere, and how much for each. Everything else is irrelevant without this factor. E.g., If the energy isn't entering the system in the first place it can't be retained.

> I see "skeptics" claiming that Global Warmongers are government supported scientists looking for grants and anti-capitalists looking to gain power.The powerful scientists living their lives in luxury ruling the world while eating caviar paid for by government grants. Have you ever seen the office of some of those money grabbing scientists? And have you noted all the power they wield in our society? Yeah... I thought so.If you want money and power you sure as hell won't become a climate scientist. There is much more of both on wall street and more of the latter working as consultant for people like the koch brothers...

Um, Muller was one of the main people who supported McKitrick and McIntyre's paper against the "Hockey Stick Graph". Before that, he was a big backer of Soon and Baliunas's denialist work.

What we're seeing here is a lovely bit of revisionist history. *Most* of the denialist scientists accept at least some tenets of global warming, so you can dig up old quotes for almost any of them. But it's simply a fact that Muller was one of the leading critics of the "Hockey Stick Graph", and now he's gone and published a graph that confirms the Hockey Stick.

Um, Muller was one of the main people who supported McKitrick and McIntyre's paper against the "Hockey Stick Graph". Before that, he was a big backer of Soon and Baliunas's denialist work.

What we're seeing here is a lovely bit of revisionist history. *Most* of the denialist scientists accept at least some tenets of global warming, so you can dig up old quotes for almost any of them. But it's simply a fact that Muller was one of the leading critics of the "Hockey Stick Graph", and now he's gone and published a graph that confirms the Hockey Stick.

Denying the hockey stick graph does not make one a global warming skeptic. It makes him a hockey stick denier. The title of TFA is, "Richard Muller, Global Warming Skeptic, Now Agrees Climate Change Is Real".

1) The article is dishonest by claiming that Muller is a Global Warming Skeptic.2) I find it sad that if a scientist, even one environmentally conscious as Muller is labeled as a AGW denier simply because he had issues with the Hockey Stick Graph. It's like the environmentalists are saying, "You ar

Right. You don't care whether he backs denier papers -- all you care about is grabbing a couple random quotes with no context (something that can be done for pretty much any denier). As if the latter is what matters and the former is irrelevant.

"Denier" is an ad hominem attack that clearly was popularized because of the association to holocaust "deniers". Its use is a Goddwinning of the discussion. It is used by people that have no reasonable argument themselves, but feel they MUST be right because they are going along with the majority. Thus they resort to name calling.

He was skeptical of the science being claimed to prove the issue, not the issue itself. The two are very separate things - it's possible to say "Yeah, I think global warming is happening, but I don't believe the science being done thus far is of decent enough quality to prove it so we can't say for sure".

He has now done research that appears to fit quite closely to the science he was skeptical of.

Why do the global warming denialists need to make things up and jump to false conclusions if their belief is as solid as they say it is?

Nothing will help someone like you though, you're clearly set in your ways and not one of those people who will ever change their mind despite being faced with mounting evidence contrary to your claim, and no evidence supporting your claim. So stick to the straw man arguments, if they really make you feel better. I'm sure that's what flat earth theorists did to make themselves feel better too.

True. He's not a "skeptic". He's a skeptic. He's skeptical of things which it makes sense to be skeptical of, where serious questions lay, and not so skeptical of things where all questions skeptical scientists have asked have been answered.

He is, like all true skeptics, just as skeptical of his own ideas as he is of the ideas of others.

For instance he was skeptical as to whether questionable weather balloon data, and the urban heat island effect, had been properly accounted for in other analysis. This could, hypothetically, drastically change the results. While a "skeptic" would then say "therefore all IPCC data is invalid and AGW is a sham", Mueller, being an actual skeptic, wanted to actually find out if his idea was correct. And was willing to contemplate that he was wrong.

I'm sorry that this isn't the kind of "skeptic" you wanted. I'm sorry that we can't find someone who is as biased as you want them to be in the direction you want them to be, but who is also in tune with what actual weaknesses in climate science exist and who is ready to accept that it is possible they themselves are wrong, not just that prevailing climate science is wrong. Sorry if you feel lied to that it was claimed he was a GW Skeptic, which is true, but not for the definition you wished.

Nevertheless, this is the kind of skeptic we need. This is the kind of skeptic who helps. Because instead of trying to "balance" bias (even though he does, around the real fulcrum of the scientific debate), his results help to eliminate bias. The question is not: Does the bias match or go against the results. The question is: Was the science done properly, so that bias was eliminated as much as possible.

That question is what Mueller was skeptical of. This is more evidence that the science was done properly.

You don't seem to believe that, because Mueller wasn't biased the way you wanted him to be. But the fact is that his results did go against his preconception and biases. So if that's what you care about, then you should pay attention to his results.

Look at the 'pulses' in CO2 and temperature every 120,000y or so.We're due for a pulse now, and we're getting one. Why is this a surprise?

Yes, AGW proponents will claim that the "rate-increase in CO2 is exceptional this time". However, I haven't seen that the Vostok ice cores have a reliable resolution down to centuries, certainly not the deca

Interesting that you should mention the Vostok ice core data. Most Climate Change "truthers" aren't very familiar with the scientific data about Climate Change.
I'd like to draw your attention to something interesting about the Vostok ice core data:
You'll notice that, in the last 400,000 years (spanning multiple Ice Ages and inter-glacial periods), the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide never exceeded 300ppm. We currently stand at ~390ppm.

Now... the denialists on SlashDot are saying "Fine, CC is happening but we don't agree that humans cause it" which just boggles the mind.

Thats pretty much what we 'denialists' have always said, if you'd been paying attention rather than having your head up someones ass saying 'they are right and you are wrong because we're louder!'. Instead, you don't even actually know what the debate is about.

We have scientific proof that CC is happening and we know of the mechanics through which greenhouse gasses (to which human activity significantly contributes) increase heat in atmosphere. So, we *do* know that human contribute to the CC that we know to be happening.

You completely fail to understand the difference between science and politics. Science has SOME theories suggesting what you say, no proof. Politics turn those theories into 'proof' for people like yourself who hasn't actally looked at the research, you've just picked a side.

No intelligent person is claiming that global warming isn't happening. Its been happening for 100k years or so that our planet has been climbing its way out of the last ice age. There is no denying it. And we're now we're into the disputed territory, as to whats going to happen in the future and how big of an impact we have on it.

The only thing left to argue about is how much do we contribute... 80%? 50%? However, I've not once seen a denialist argue "The mainstream claims that we contribute 80% but I think it's only 50% because of this evidence..." but instead it always seems to be "Ok, CC is happening but it's all because of sun spots!" or whatever...

Then you need to have an actual discussion with intelligent people rather than the morons you're talking too. CC is happening because its part of the Earth's cycle and has been for millions of years due to many variations in the planet that existed before humans existed. You're just too ignorant/lazy to bother to learn any actual facts yourself, instead you'd rather repeat what some stooge on TV or elsewhere parroted at you. The fact that you don't know this tells me you must have payed absolutely no attention what so ever during your education, or you didn't get one in America.

which is the reason why I call them "denialists".

No, you call us denialists as an insult and a way to degrade our opinions in the eyes of others. Its basically the same thing as me call you a moron. The difference is, I'm clear that I'm calling you an idiot, you're just a passive aggressive ignorant little lacky for politicians.

I'm a 'denialist' and I can safely say that you have absolutely no fucking clue why we 'denialists' are so.

I believe you would be referred to as a 'follower' for blindly following without understanding, at least I listen and make an attempt to accept both sides of the argument based on evidence. You're clearly basing your entire belief on faith, arrogance and pride. Its like you've joined a cult and are ignoring evidence because you 'know' you're right.

Now... the denialists on SlashDot are saying "Fine, CC is happening but we don't agree that humans cause it" which just boggles the mind.

Thats pretty much what we 'denialists' have always said, if you'd been paying attention rather than having your head up someones ass saying 'they are right and you are wrong because we're louder!'. Instead, you don't even actually know what the debate is about.

Ummmm, there are denialists on THIS VERY THREAD which are arguing that climate change isn't real because "it hasn't warmed in 10 years".

We don't, but if we're responsible for it, we need to take action to slow or reverse it, if we're not, we need to prepare regardless.

Remember, Britain was linked to Mainland Europe before it was flooded as recently as 8,000 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland [wikipedia.org]Natural or not, if warming is happening, and is increasing, our civilisation is in jeopardy.

Warming is bad because it will make the earths inhabitable area diminish. This significantly changes the available land mass that humans, and other animals, can effectively colonize and live fruitful childbearing lives. Also, warmer temperatures will create more hostile weather patters further limiting usable land area as certain weather patterns hit certain regions harder. (ie. hurricanes on the east coast). Lastly, increasing temperatures melt polar ice and raise sea levels. Further limiting usable land mass. You try to act like its all about temperature, but clearly you don't really understand the full breadth of the idea. How about this fun fact. Hotter summers make for colder winters. How long before we trigger another ice age. Perhaps you should look up positive feedback loops.

As an example: Glaciers are a very effective retardant for spring floods. Instead of releasing all water that has accumulated during the winter in one big melting season, it melts slowly during the spring, summer and autumn, until the rain freezes again on the glacier and let it grow.Thus the land where the melt water runs through during its course to the sea has a steady flow of water coming during the whole vegetation period.

If glaciers are melting, they are losing their water locking properties. Then all

Warming isn't bad for the earth, the earth doesn't care. The earth was completely molten at least twice, and it got through those hot flashes just fine (albeit, to be fair, those were several billion years ago).

Warming is bad for humans, at least humans who live close to sea level or who depend on doing their farming where they've always done their farming and don't feel like moving.

Correction: warming is bad for SOME humans. Some humans, particularly every human living somewhere where it's cold, where they burn through megajoules of energy warming their houses and plowing snow and spreading salt on their roads, would do better to have longer growing seasons and more warm, tourist-friendly climate. Why are the interests of equatorial people more important than the interests of polar people? Why do you hate the Eskimos?

But the hypsographic curve of the earth shows that a large part of the world's population lives within less than 10 m above sealevel, for instance half of Bangladesh is less than 10 m above sealevel. It's not just surveyors who will know the difference, it's half of Bangladesh's population (about 70 mio of 142 mio inhabitants) who will notice this.What do you think will happen if 70 mio people are looking for a new home? And that's just the people from a single country.

It's perfectly true that there isn't a "correct" temperature for the Earth. In the past the planet has been both much hotter than now and much colder and, well look at that, it seems to have come through OK.

However what with the predicted extensive desertification, rising sea levels, more extreme weather conditions and what have you, CC is likely to be somewhat inconvenient for the soon-to-be 7 billion people wandering about.

The issue is not *that* climate is changing. It's *how fast* climate is changing.

The last time Earth experienced a GHG surge and corresponding temperature rise and ocean acidification analogous to what we're now creating was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). It left the world such a different place that we declare what followed a new geological era (the Eocene).

Exactly! You can tell all those CC scientists guys 'cause they're always going around in those fancy cars and fancy suits and reporting year after year of record profits and record bonuses and how they have all that lobbyist influence with Congress and the White House. Damn them! Damn then to hell!

Don't forget the history of European and US support for dictatorships and direct military intervention in the Middle East in order to maintain control of the largest climate science research stations in the world. If climate scientists are willing to kill for their astronomical profits, don't you suppose they'd be willing to lie?

Actually, 390 ppm in the entire atmosphere is the same as a 50% CO2 atmosphere over 5 meters. So, yes, from a radiative heat transfer point of view it is a lot. So much that increases now have a marginal effect. Ironically, if there really were "very little" CO2, then an increase would matter. It is precisely because there is so much in the atmosphere that it doesn't matter much how much more we add, up to about 2,000 to 3,000 ppm where it might begin to impact on respiration. (Yes, I am an expert in radiant heat transfer).

How can you say researchers are working backwards when over 100 years ago Svante Arrhenius found that increasing the CO2 level in the atmosphere would cause warming? That was long before any of these models you denigrate.

The main one is probably the last one. There are a bunch of rich guys like the Koch brothers who own large parts of the politicians and believe that they will be able to buy their way through a global warming crisis. These are the ones who can pay for the lobbies

Yes, it would be amazing if there was wide scale intimidation of climate scientists. Given that the pro AGW crowd consistently states that there is a consensus among climate scientists that AGW is happening, the anti-AGW crowd would have to be intimidating virtually the entire scientific community. Are you saying that the entire scientific community is being intimidated, or are you saying that there isn't a consensus?

What many people see is the craziness people get over one degree (or even a half), when we see things all around that suggest far more drastic changes:

The "Fertile Crescent", which went from Iraq through Israel/Palestine to Egypt and Ethiopia, is now desert. All of it. There was no significant raise in generation of carbon.

There are mammoths in Russia that are flash-frozen with jungle foods in their bellies. Nobody's SUV caused that.

The fact is that we live on a planet which undergoes constant changes, some of which we can control and some we can't. The disagreements are that some don't believe we are warming significantly (compared to obviously-worse past events) and don't agree that the human cause is a significant percentage of the problem. Many people also believe that simply planting more trees takes care of the carbon problem, or that increased carbon dioxide actually CAUSES more trees to grow naturally, self-correcting the problem.

Spending billions to address 1% of the problem would obviously be a huge mistake, and that's what people object to. Likewise, doing nothing about something that could cause major catastrophes is a huge mistake as well. This is why people are so emotional on both sides.

Unfortunately, like most things in life, most people are massive fanbois to the side they have chosen and refuse to consider the arguments and evidence for both sides, instead calling the other side names and trying to shame them and invalidate their arguments with ad hominem attacks.

Opps, it's not Global Warming, it should be called Climate Change, since warming can be actually cooling

Well it *is* "global warming". The earth is getting, on average, warmer. The destabilization of climate caused by this may lead to colder weather on a particular day, or even generally colder temperatures in a particular place, but it's still global warming.

Not to mention that Mullar was never even close to a skeptic and his co-author (Dr. J. Curry, a prominent climate researcher who would hardly be called a skeptic either) is disputing his comments about what the data shows. The great thing about the BEST project is all of the data and methods are available. Unlike Hadley CRU who have lost their original data, and still refuse to provide the various Ural data sets.Or GISS that won't provide the method(s??) used to 'normalize' their data. With the BEST project, we can see things like this comparison of what Mullar released to the press and what the data actually shows. Note that the two graphs have different time scales on the x axis, which is not quite cricket, but the point is valid.

No, it is more likely that Mullar, who has always been on the mainstream side, knew his data set would show 10 years of no warming while CO2 increased. This would be fuel to the fire of climate skeptics, so he pre-empted with a press release stating that the data shows one thing when it actually shows the exact opposite.

Given the number of true believers here (people I equate with the deniers on the skeptic side), I am wondering how long this post, all of which is factual and can be confirmed with relative ease, will be modded "troll". Seems to happen to all posts that are in any way skeptical.

FYI: At short timescales, noise dominates the climate signals (due to many factors, but one of the biggest being ENSO). The climate signal only dominates in time scales. So saying "global warming has stopped over a scale of X years", where X is less than ~25 or so, is absurd. Which is what that conversation about "statistical significance" that the article tries to obscure is about.

Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious âClimategateâ(TM) scandal two years ago.

How many more lines are left on the list?
We've got past the "it's not warming at all" stage.
So next up is "it may be warming, but it's not us" then "ok, it's us, but we can't/shouldn't do anything about it" and eventually "it was us but it's too late." What comes after that?

We've had hints of that already. After that comes "But is it really a problem if poor people die? Don't the environmentalists say there a too many people? They should be happy to see these people dying!"

How many more lines are left on the list?We've got past the "it's not warming at all" stage.So next up is "it may be warming, but it's not us" then "ok, it's us, but we can't/shouldn't do anything about it" and eventually "it was us but it's too late." What comes after that?

How do we make money off of it? That's what most conservatives have been thinking for quite a while now. Consider the prices of agricultural land as an indicator.

How many more lines are left on the list?
We've got past the "it's not warming at all" stage.
So next up is "it may be warming, but it's not us" then "ok, it's us, but we can't/shouldn't do anything about it" and eventually "it was us but it's too late." What comes after that?

What comes next is "its the scientists fault for not being definite and unambiguous". Plus lots of minor attacks on specific ways of reducing emissions - you know the "smog reflects heat rays so cars hep combat climate change" things

In a nutshell she is in full support of the report. She just had a problem with some of the things Muller said about the report. Ergo: She accepts global warming is happening, and she's not claiming that global warming stopped over the last 10 years.

What they've confirmed is that there was indeed a warming trend from about 1970 (or so) through about 2000. Before that, nothing significant. Since then, nothing significant. So we have a 30-year period of warming. That's an extremely short period when you're talking climate science. It also inconveniently doesn't match up with carbon dioxide emissions growth.

The data before the 1970s correlates with carbon dioxide emissions growth when you take into account sulfur dioxide emissions which cool the earth.

There is plenty of other evidence that carbon dioxide levels are a major influence on the earth's temperature. The question isn't if man made emissions affect the climate, but how much will man affect the climate. I would love to debate what to do about it, but It is pretty hard to do that when their is a significant portion of population who flat out denies basic science.

So your claim is that BEST only shows a 30 year warming trend. And that's too short.And the case made by your link is that BEST shows no warming for the last 10 years.You're saying that 30 years is too short, yet 10 years is significant.

According to the Space Nutters, we'll find magical elements in the Periodic Table of Elements so we can build fantasy-level spaceships to leave "this rock" and spread the species among the stars. Yes, even the dirt-poor third-worlders will magically float away on space elevators made of tachyons. Amazing! Thanks, space!

Or equally plausible Jesus/Muhammad/Highly advanced aliens will step in to save us so we might as well carry on as usual.

That seems pretty obvious. I mean, the sea level rise alone is going to be unpleasant at the very least. Is it really cheaper to rebuild cities and work on defenses of enormous scale than to spew less crap into the air?

3. Humans are the primary cause

Why is it so important? Since when do we sit there and take it just because "nature did it"?

Richard has betrayed the cause. In Australia, the previous government threatened to defund the CSIRO if they published or mentioned the results of their climate modelling - and similarly, climate scientists were subjected to death threats and had members of their families threatened by thugs, after they spoke publicly on the subject.

Richard should therefore keep his head down. These aren't people that follow the path of reason, and there is a lot of money at stake.

He has never been a skeptic of man-made global warming. He has been a proponent of the theory since the 1980s. He even wrote a book in 2008 called "Physics for the Futue President" in which he called he said the next President would have to institute policies to address it.
This is what most makes me question his motives. He has been preaching man-made global warming for decades, now he has a new study and is claiming that he was a "skeptic" until he completed this new study.

It seems from reading on some of the skeptic's websites, they always knew that the temperature was rising, and this study confirms nothing, has not been peer reviewed and is flawed is several ways. The kettle defense!

Use the period between 1980 and 2010 instead of the period between 1970 and 2000. Thats gives you thirty years to average out, which is the claim I keep seeing as long enough. Now is that 1980 to 2010 period cooler than the 1970 to 2000 period?

I'm sorry you don't like the facts but they don't support the theory at this time.

In reality we haven't studied the problem long enough to actually MAKE an educated guess, let alone act on it, and second, 30 still isn

What is "enough evidence" in this instance? Why were the previous two nigh-identical studies on the same data set not sufficient? Why should we imagine that Muller's study will somehow convince the doubters? He's already getting hung out to dry by armchair scientists and former supporters like Anthony Watts.

Instead of making grandiose statements that the Koch brothers fund global warming skeptics "whenever possible", why not link to their official position [kochind.com] on global warming and what we should/shouldn't do about it?

Instead of making grandiose statements that the Koch brothers fund global warming skeptics "whenever possible", why not link to their official position [kochind.com] on global warming and what we should/shouldn't do about it?

Have a look at this summary of their activity [climatesciencewatch.org] and tell me their position is anything but skeptical. Not that there is anything wrong with that, they are self-proclaimed libertarians and as such are expected to be of the opinion that government has no place influencing the environment (or much of anything else) so it is natural that they will do whatever it takes to prevent public opinion from boiling over on this issue.

I am wondering, at this point, if Richard Muller isn't simply a very talented troll who

Koch companies believe in the efficient use of all resources and are committed to maintaining a clean and healthy environment. But we also think there should be open and honest debate about climate change and the likely effects of proposed climate policies on the energy that drives the productivity of our society. In recent years, a vocal group of self-declared environmentalists has repeatedly insisted that our planet is in peril because of man-made greenhouse gases. Many take their cues from Al Gore’s 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,”...

Seems the new tack is to say that it happens after all, but all those who said so before are sensationalists and "so-called environmentalists"...

By the way, about Muller's turnaround: How to make yourself a reference in a field where you have no competence? First deny forcefully and get headlines, then say that after careful verification, you found out the truth. Don't forget to continue to berate the real scientists treating them as sensationalists!

And further by the way, the Koch brothers do fund denialists (not skeptical as they claim) research and are the funders (and true founders) of the Tea party.Who modded the parent up?

Their official position is simple: Do what ever generates the most revenue at the highest profit margin or positions the company to do so in the next quarter.

If that means lobbying to get emissions and safty regulations lightened, they will. If that means buying out other companies producing solar or wind generators, they will. What ever it takes to increase their income.

At the risk of being tagged "flamebait", I'm going to second this. It seems to be rather -unscientific- to snarkily jab at "investors who fund climate change skeptics whenever possible"; science needs research, and the more the better. True scientists are --BY DEFINITION-- skeptics, at least they should be. From the link posted above, it seems to me that the Koch brothers have a pretty rational mindset: research, research, research, research.

At the risk of being tagged "flamebait", I'm going to second this. It seems to be rather -unscientific- to snarkily jab at "investors who fund climate change skeptics whenever possible"; science needs research, and the more the better. True scientists are --BY DEFINITION-- skeptics, at least they should be.

this is where the rift between skeptics, deniers, and true believers come into play. A true skeptic is someone who looks at the evidence and can be convinced by it. A true believer is someone who believes despite the lack of evidence, and a denier is someone who cannot be convinced by a reasonable amount of evidence. The real argument is about whether AGW opponents are "skeptics" or "deniers".

From the link posted above, it seems to me that the Koch brothers have a pretty rational mindset: research, research, research, research.

Of course they also suggested that the EPA should base it's policies on opinion polls, and neglected to mention any

The problem is that Richard Muller was never a global warming skeptic. He was talking about the "need to address man-made global warming" back in the 1980s. In 2008, he wrote a book,"Physics for Future Presidents" [grist.org], advising either John McCain or Barack Obama to prepare to address man-made global warming. This whole story is a fraud. The guy is claiming that he used to be a global warming skeptic, yet, he has been preaching Anthropogenic Global Warming pretty much as long as anyone.

A skeptic is supposed to be someone that is interested in finding out the truth even if they believe a statement is not true. A denier isn't interested in what is real, just convincing people to follow them.

A denier isn't interested in what is real, just convincing people to follow them.

Which is what Richard Muller appears to be, except that he wasn't denying man-made global warming, he has been shilling for it. He has never demonstrated any skepticism of the theory. He has been promoting it. Even though he has been talking about global warming as "settled science" for a well over a decade, he has come out with a new study that supports what he has been saying all along, but that wouldn't make news, so he claims he was "skeptical" of man-made global warming until he did this study and "now, he is convinced".

This guy had some actual scientific doubts about global warming, he wasn't against it because it was what his "gut" told him, or because it was the party line, he actually had some reservations, which is what any good scientist should have, and wanted to do some more study. He did, and upon further investigation he had his doubts assuaged. This is the scientific process in action.

However, probably only 1% of the AGW are like this guy and are legitimately uncertain about the science and want to know more Most are like Glenn Beck or Rick Perry and don't believe in global warming simply because it is(for them anyway), politically and economically expedient to do so. They will of course evoke the word "science" as if somehow just using that word automatically gives credence to what they are saying, but those guys don't even have a basic grasp of climate science, or even the scientific method as a whole.

I remember one of the rabid right-wing blogs going crazy because a new paper had shed more light on a particular topic and thus they seemed to think that it somehow "disproved" all climate science.... BUT THAT IS HOW SCIENCE FUCKING WORKS! The beauty about the scientific method is that we are constantly getting a clearer picture of what is going on and increasing our understanding of how things work, and reversals of some research is inevitable AND a good thing. However, these people look at changing your beliefs in response to new information as an anathema, you must be ideologically pure and no amount of empirical data should ever change how you view the world.....

Anyway, getting back on topic, this data will not convince the 99% of the AGW whose beliefs about global warming aren't even remotely rooted in science, and so the dark ages in the US will continue.

A Slashdot global warming discussion is like old people fucking. It's messy and not much gets accomplished.

And......While everyone technically has the right equipment for this, not everyone's seems to be working quite right....Things are stretched and distorted beyond recognition....People take completely unrealistic positions and refuse to admit they can't hold them....It sounds like it might be entertaining, but it's mostly just disturbing.

Now that even the previously skeptical are finally admitting climate change is happening- how do we prove that man is responsible- what would it take?

To me it seems like evolution- where no matter how much evidence and proof we collect there remains those that keep on saying "well- I don't believe it so nah!"

Perhaps it isn't coincidental that those that deny evolution always seem to be the same ones that deny the impact man is having on the environment.

So- what does it take- what will it take to prove man is having an impact on the environment- or is this just one of those issues that no matter how much evidence we find- it will still be denied?

150 years from now, if my anti-aging drugs allow me to live that long- and I sit on oceanfront property in West Virginia- will the young whipper snappers that get on my lawn be thinking that global warming has nothing to do with man?

This report has not been peer-reviewed, and no one should draw any conclusions yet. The "pre-publication" of this report is reportedly the work of the report's primary author; none of the co-authors were consulted. The Daily Mail is reporting that one of the co-authors, Prof Judith Curry, has even begun to distance herself [dailymail.co.uk] from the report. I predict that nothing good will come of this pre-publishing gambit; this entire approach will confuse rather than clarify, and real science will bear yet another black mark.

That's neither here nor there, since it has been widely demonstrated that if you actually plot his data, you will find that there has been no warming for the last ten years, contrary to the statements he has made to the press:

Now the denialists are denying the denialists' study because it conflicts with denialism! LOL!

Actually when I first read about this study, I thought it didn't contribute anything new, and was just repeating past experiments under Koch funding to rule out any possibility of bias due to TEH GLOBAL AGW CONSPIRACY!

But this study is actually based on a much more robust data set than any other before in history, so it at least more concretely proves the observed warming record:

if you actually plot his data, you will find that there has been no warming for the last ten years, contrary to the statements he has made to the press

So, when climate scientists analyse their data carefully, but they omit even the slightest potential source of error, their results are worthless. If a climate skeptic throws the raw data into a big lump in a spreadsheet and makes a wiggly-ass, clearly nonphysical chart, that's a convincing analysis.

Yup, people won't see it because any dissent from credentialed researchers invalidates the drum-beat of 'consensus!' The argument is closed forever, and any challenge makes you an ignorant redneck 'denialist'!

Whenever questions and dissent are not welcome you have dogma, not science.

Judith Curry is frantically backpedalling on her blog, having been fooled by the Mail reporter, David Rose, who has prior form, see:http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/rosegate_rose_does_to_data_wha_1.php

And the rest of the article turns out to be a misrepresentation too:http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/judith-curry-opens-mouth-inserts-foot/

You are an idiot if you place any credence in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, which has a proven track record of distorting such interviews. At the very least a transcript is absolutely required when dealing with such publications.

Our power output per capita is not a meaningful contribution to global warming. The problem is that the main source of our energy, fossil fuel combustion, happens to release large amounts of a gas (co2) that happens to be a more effective insulator than the mix of gases that made up our atmosphere before the industrial revolution. If we switched to 100% nuclear tomorrow, and had 70 billion people using 10x as much energy on average, we still wouldn't have a problem dissipating the heat.